


All Around the World was Waking

by Tabithian



Series: Stitching up the Circuit Board [2]
Category: Batman (Comics), DCU, DCU - Comicverse, Nightwing (Comics), Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-29
Updated: 2012-10-29
Packaged: 2017-11-17 07:36:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/549153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tabithian/pseuds/Tabithian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He feels Jason's sigh sweep over his thoughts, light, faintly amused. <i>Why did I ever let you talk me into this?</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	All Around the World was Waking

_I changed my mind_

Tim feels the corner of his mouth quirk, sees Dick frown.

_Too late for that_

He feels Jason's sigh sweep over his thoughts, light, faintly amused. _Why did I ever let you talk me into this?_

They're in Bruce's office waiting for him to arrive for a debriefing.

 _Knowing him, it's going to be an interrogation,”_ Jason grumbles, nervous.

There's a computer set up to allow Jason to directly interact with others, not connected to the manor's systems, in case Jason isn’t who he says he is – who _Tim_ says he is. 

Tim's eyes slide toward the office door as it opens, and Bruce Wayne steps into the room. Tall, imposing. More than the facade he shows the world, and Tim's hand clench into fists because he can feels Jason's trepidation. His fear.

 _I can't -_.

“Mr. Wayne,” Tim says, pushing his own anxiety down. This is for Jason.

Bruce stares at him, wary, Suspicious. It's one thing to claim that Big Bad is Jason and not an AI programmed to think it's Jason. Or that it is Jason and Tim's altered him in some way.

“Mr. Drake.”

They stare at one another for several moments, Tim waiting for - 

“Jesus, Bruce. Way to make a guy feel welcome.”

Tim smiles, and somewhere behind him Dick laughs. 

Bruce. He goes. 

Tim knows why Bruce and his family do what they do, masquerading as space pirates because the universe is a dangerous place with people like Luthor in charge. Making the rules, enforcing laws. Getting away with the things they do because they have money and power and a lack of anything that could be considered a conscience.

“Sir,” Tim says, and waits.

“Little Red - “

“Explain,” Bruce says, cold.

“ _Bruce_.”

Bruce. It's not a wince, just a tightening around his eyes, and that thing in his eyes - 

“...Please,” he says, rounding his desk to take the chair behind it, gesturing at the one across from him.

Tim smiles, faint, and accepts.

Bruce is watching him, searching for tells, not looking for lies, for Tim spinning a tale, but for the truth.

 _No pressure._ Jason whispers in his mind, settling in to wait.

 _Ass_ , Tim thinks, fondly.

Dick moves to stand at Bruce's shoulder, protective, reassuring, and Tim.

“Where would you like me to start?”

Tim's parents were rarely home. Either busy with the company or off on one of his father's digs, on planet and off. (The universe is vast, and humanity has come into contact with many alien races.)

Tim himself, a little on the small side and far too smart for his own good. Surgery for the neural implants done at a far earlier age than normal because his parents (mother) felt he was ready for them.

(He wasn't, but that's not important. It never was.)

“How old were you at the time?” Dick asks, hand on Bruce's shoulder.

Tim sighs, Jason a reassuring presence in the back of his mind. “Four.”

Young, yes, but not unheard of. Neural implants – any kind of implants – are still highly controversial. How old should someone be? Should the government pay for it? Is it morally and ethically right? 

“Four.”

Tim shrugs. “Basic hardware, limited uplink.” His parents aren't stupid. Whatever else they are, it isn't that. Sixty percent of people who elect to have the surgery reject the implants, Tim was one of the lucky few who hadn't. “There were upgrades as I got older and it became clear that they weren't being rejected.” 

Top of the line, leading edge upgrades. Wayne Enterprises technology, only the best for Janet and Jack Drake's son.

Dick looks. Conflicted, and Bruce.

_Your parents are assholes._

Tim won't argue that. He knows they weren't good parents, or as Jason would argue, any kind of parents at all. They did what they thought was best for Tim. The company.

Jason shifts, restless, uneasy. _Angry_ , because.

“I got bored, easily,” Tim says. “I knew my parents weren't.” He stops, unsure how to phrase this next bit. “Something was wrong.” 

Bruce's eyes narrow. “Wrong, how?”

“My parents fought.” 

Before, they hadn't fought so much as voiced their disagreements, his father frustrated and resigned, his mother always cool and in control. _Certain_. “They were careful not to talk about whatever it was when I was in the same room, but - “

“But he got curious,” Jason cuts in. “Little Red has a problem with leaving mysteries unsolved.” 

Tim makes a face at that because, well. _Yes_. But seeing as how it led him to Jason, he's fine with that personality flaw.

“'Little Red'?” Dick asks, eyebrows going up. He'd let it slide the first time, but now - 

Tim smiles at Jason's own amusement. “Long story.”

Bruce’s eyes flicker. “You mentioned a mystery?”

And. This. 

“I found Jason.” He found a nightmare. He smiles, pained. “My parents were funding a project to create AI systems capable of human-level thought.” Of learning, adapting. Making choices based on more than logic and fact and hard knowledge. 

“That's not possible,” Dick says. “The technology isn't there yet.”

People have come close, so very close, though. 

“They needed 'volunteers',” Tim says. “Neural net scans to model the AI after.”

And when that hadn't worked - 

“Where did they find these 'volunteers'?” Bruce asks, the look in his eyes telling Tim he knows.

Humanity has come a long way since its inception, but some things never change.

“Where else?” Tim asks. “People who wouldn't be missed.” He waits for that to sink in. “The homeless, runaways.” 

He'd had his suspicions before he'd taken Jason and run that they had started to look at potential candidates that _would_ be missed, desperate. After kidnapping people off the street, how much harder would it have been to take someone from their home? (Tim wonders if his parents knew his own name had been listed as a possible candidate. If they'd cared.)

 _Idiot_ , Jason snarls.

For wondering if they'd cared, or caring that they'd wonder at all?

_Fucking idiot._

“How did they - “ Dick looks at Bruce for a moment, hand on his shoulder squeezing. “How did they get Jason?”

That's the thing Tim doesn't have an explanation for. Jason had died, killed by a madman when the project was in its infancy. And yet - 

“We don't know,” Tim says, frustrated even now by that. “What we do know is that he was found wandering the streets and they took him.” Not the first, nowhere near the first.

“He died,” Dick says.

Tim looks at him. “Yes.”

“But you're saying he was wandering the streets? How is that even possible?“

“I don't know, Tim say, spreading his hands. “They didn't care who was before when they found him,” Tim says, gently. “They saw an opportunity and took it.” 

Bruce is watching him, calm, patient. “The files you gave us?“

“Everything we could find is in there,” Tim says. From the project leader down to anyone even remotely involved because Tim is very thorough, and there's no knowing who knew what, or how much. 

There's so much to be done, still. People who need to be tracked down, and Tim knows his parents will go to prison for this. That their name, their reputation, won't protect them in this, but. 

People died, and there's not forgetting that. No pretending it didn't happen. 

“You told me you didn't know it was Jason at first,” Dick says suddenly.

“I got my head bashed in, Dick,” Jason says, blunt, brutal. Enough that Dick flinches and Bruce reacts, minute but visible. “Fuck if I know why or how I came back, but it's not like I was all there, you know?”

“What - “

“He was like a very young AI,” Tim says. “That's what I thought he was at first, a failed attempt that they'd hidden.” He shakes his head. “They were going to destroy him when I did because he wasn't what they were expecting.”

Dick tenses, and Bruce. He's very, very good at hiding what he's thinking, feeling, but there's a definite reaction at that news.

“So I,” Tim laughs, hollow. “I stole him. They weren't looking closely at what he was, just that he was going to be destroyed, so I left a decoy in his place.”

“For what purpose?” Bruce asks.

There are so many things Tim could say here, but only one honest answer. “Because I was lonely.”

There's a long moment of silence, save for Jason's anger, familiar and oddly reassuring. 

“He – it wasn't Jason at first,” Tim says. “He was in there, but the damage he'd sustained when he died was too extensive.” The groundwork the scientists involved in the project was incredible, a step in the right direction for creating an AI capable of true thought. “When they introduced Jason to it, it started to repair what damage it could.” 

And Jason had healed, not completely. Maybe never completely, but he's come so far from the day Tim discovered him. 

“When did you know it was him?” Dick asks.

Tim smiles, real. “He saved my life.”

Saved it, and bitched at him the whole time because Tim and bad ideas go together like nothing else. Tim and bad ideas and putting too much trust in the wrong people and Jason stepping in. Because he knew Tim, even before Jason knew his own identity, when he was simply Big Bad.

Remembers Tim talking to him, answering questions and telling him about his day. Reading to him. Teaching him. He remembered Tim as someone he could trust, who had kept him safe even if didn't know the why of it. 

“Because you're a fucking idiot,” Jason says, and then, “Are we done here? Little Red saved my – he saved me, and I saved him and it's all very heartwarming. I think I'm going to cry.”

Dick laughs, startled almost, and Bruce. There's the faintest sign of a smile.

He looks at the monitor, at Jason's avatar – what he would have looked like if he'd lived.

There have been tests - official and scientific and some that were just Dick asking questions. Trying to trip Jason and Tim up, to see if Jason was who he claimed to be. Tim knows there will be more to come, trust doesn't come easy to Bruce, and Tim understands that all too well, as can Jason.

“Welcome home, Jason," Bruce says, looking tired, tentatively happy.

Tim can feel Jason’s surprise, his cautious. Not joy, exactly, but so, so close because it's been years and so much has happened. Bruce will always be important to him no matter what. Bruce and Dick and the rest of his family.

 _And you, moron, don't fucking forget it,_ Jason snaps, with another mental head slap.

 _How could I?_ Tim counters. _You won't let me forget._

_Damn right I won't._

Tim smiles, something warm and happy and content curling in his chest and echoes Bruce's words, _Welcome home, Jason._


End file.
